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Coffin at St. Louis City Hall Stands in for Army Vet Killed in No-Knock Raid | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

February 21, 2024

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click to enlarge RYAN KRULL Don Clark Jr. (left) and Tony Green outside City Hall.

Seven years ago today, Don Clark Sr. was asleep in his home in Dutchtown when 17 St. Louis police officers serving a no-knock warrant busted in and opened fire. Nine bullets struck the 63-year-old U.S. Army veteran, killing him.

“It feels like it just happened,” says his son Don Clark Jr. “The day plays in our minds all the time.”

Clark and others showed up with a coffin in front of St. Louis City Hall today. Clark, now 51, says he wants to keep his father’s memory fresh in city leaders’ minds. They handed out fliers encouraging people to call the City Counselor’s office and “demand justice,” which attorney Jerryl Christmas says means for that office, which represents the city on legal matters, to stop dragging out the suit and compensate the family what they’re owed.

“They got to keep reliving this because we got to keep reliving it in litigation,” he says.

The night of Clark’s killing, police were serving warrants at three houses on his block of California Avenue. A source had told police they had seen guns and drugs at the three locations. But Clark’s family and the attorneys representing them say that the notion Clark was involved in the drug trade is ludicrous. After his military service, Clark founded his own security company. He was a diabetic who walked with a cane. He had poor eyesight and poor vision.

According to the lawsuit, the officers didn’t announce that they were law enforcement before ramming down Clark’s door and deploying a diversionary device in the home.

“You didn’t have to do a no-knock warrant to search his house,” Christmas says. “If you would have done any kind of observation and saw that he was a 60-year-old disabled man, you would know you could come and knock on his door and do a regular search in the daytime.”

click to enlarge RYAN KRULL Attorney Jerryl Christmas outside City Hall.

A spokesperson for the city said they can’t comment on the pending litigation.

Clark legally owned a firearm, and police have said they opened fire after someone in the house shot first.

Christmas says that “doesn’t make any sense.” Clark’s poor health would have made it impossible for him to retrieve a weapon and open fire in the short time between the police ramming down his door and shooting him.

In the years since Clark’s death, public awareness has grown about no-knock warrants, particularly after the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. A 26-year-old EMT, Taylor was killed by police when they raided her apartment, a raid that multiple witnesses have said was conducted without police announcing themselves. In June of that year, the city of Louisville banned no-knock warrants. Mayor Tishaura Jones followed suit two years later, banning the practice via executive order.

Jones met with several family members of people killed during no-knock raids prior to that executive order. A spokesman for City Hall says that no no-knocks have been executed in the city since.
For Clark’s family, however, seven years have gone by and they are still waiting for resolution on the lawsuit they filed against the city. Rather than settle the case, attorneys for the city have argued unsuccessfully that it should be dismissed from it.

The parties went to mediation, but Christmas says they could not make any progress.

Christmas says he can’t discuss the details of mediation beyond saying, “I’d be too embarrassed to tell what they offered as a settlement to this family. It was an insult.”

Furthermore, Christmas says, the City Counselor’s Office was aware of an St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department internal audit that revealed problems with the Clark no-knock raid, but didn’t disclose it. Details about it later became public via a different case.

“If they’d been honest at the mediation, we could have been done with this by now,” Christmas says.

Christmas says that he wanted to casket at City Hall because the office of the City Counselor Sheena Hamilton is inside.

“When do you say that you know that the people that you are dealing with are not right, and say we need to compensate [the family] and close this case out,” says Christmas. “When does the humanity come in?”

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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